After the condemnation and deposition of Apollinaris, when some time had elapsed, upon the death of Sisinnius—who after the death of the blessed Atticus had received the see of the Church of Constantinople—it seemed good to the emperors to ordain no bishop from the Church of Constantinople, but to summon some stranger from Antioch in Syria, whence formerly that Church had received John, and to make him bishop. And as Socrates relates in his Ecclesiastical History: "There was a certain presbyter at Antioch by the name of Nestorius, by birth from Germanicia, of good eloquence, whom the princes summoned to Constantinople as one useful for teaching. And when three months had passed, Nestorius came from Antioch, who was held among very many to be outstanding for chastity.
But with what manners he had been formed, the wise recognized from his very first homily. There was with him also Anastasius the presbyter, sent along with him, whom he honored exceedingly and kept as a counselor in his affairs" (Socrates, book VII, chapter 29). Nestorius therefore having been ordained on the first day of the month of April, in the consulship of Felix and Taurus, Anastasius, teaching before the church, said: "Let no one presume to call Mary the Mother of God: for Mary was a human being, and that God should be born of a human being is utterly impossible." When very many of the clergy and laity heard this together, they were greatly troubled. For they had learned of old to confess Christ as God, and by no means did they believe that, through the dispensation, the man was separated from God.
An uproar therefore having arisen in the church, Nestorius, wishing to confirm the discourse of Anastasius, because he honored him, was unwilling to reprove him as a blasphemer, but frequently taught this before the church, and stirred up this question with contentions, denying the confession of the Mother of God. Whence a division was born in the Church, and the most clever treatises of Nestorius stirred up a great upheaval in the world.
But since he did not amend, the Church of Constantinople was in scandal, and as it were in a nighttime quarrel filled with all confusion, there was no recognition of friends and foes, with various people now agreeing with these, now with those, and changing their own words, because Nestorius was of this opinion, that he should call Christ wholly a mere man, introducing into the Church the doctrine of Paul of Samosata and of Photinus. Hearing this, Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, to whom at that time was given the primacy of acting in such matters, there came to him some of the people of Constantinople who were not in communion with Nestorius, and they reported to him what had been done at Constantinople. Cyril therefore addressed a letter to Nestorius, of which the beginning is:
"Venerable and trustworthy sons," etc., persuading him that, if the discourse had been a slip among the people, it should be corrected in his treatises, so that he might call the holy Virgin the Mother of God—that is, so that the offense of the whole world might be set at rest. For Pope Celestine had already received the quaternions of his expositions through a certain distinguished man named Antiochus, and had read and examined the dogma of Nestorius himself, subscribed by his own hand and sent by him, and the whole East already had knowledge of it from his writings. But since Nestorius was unwilling to amend, Cyril again addressed a second letter to him, of which the beginning is:
"Certain men speak against me before your fraternity," etc., in which he gives him the full account of the Incarnation of Christ, asking him to be of the same mind with him, so that the peace of the Churches might stand unimpaired, and unbroken concord might remain among the priests. But to this Nestorius, writing a contrary letter to Cyril, of which the beginning is: "The injuries indeed which are against us, of your wonderful letters," etc.—nevertheless he was unwilling to call Mary blessed, nor did he amend his discourse. John of Antioch also addressed a letter to Nestorius, of which the beginning is:
"My concern regarding your reverence," etc., through which he exhorted him not to reject good counsel that would be to his benefit, since he was loath to call the blessed Virgin the Mother of God, which the holy Fathers taught and wrote. In this letter he mentions Theodore of Mopsuestia, showing him an example of retraction—how that man, when in the course of his discourse an uproar arose, rising up as a most valiant man, without confusion retracted his opinion, and what seemed of little profit to the ignorant he swiftly corrected for the benefit of the Church. But Nestorius, despising this, became hateful to his own city.
But Cyril, through his deacon Possidonius, reported about him to Pope Celestine, and what was being done at Constantinople, and laid it out through his own letter. The same Cyril addressed a third synodical letter to Nestorius, in which he also dictated and inserted twelve chapters against his dogma. And the beginning is: "The Lord saying: He who loves his father or his mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. 10). A copy of this letter, coming to John of Antioch, he was offended at those very chapters of Cyril; for he supposed that he, while immoderately opposing Nestorius, had fallen into the sect of Apollinaris.
He therefore commissioned Andrew and Theodoret, bishops of his council, to respond in writing against those very twelve chapters, as restoring the dogma of Apollinaris. Nestorius, therefore, recognizing that Cyril would not suffer the Church to be thus in disturbances, and the peoples in scandal, prevailed upon the pious emperor Theodosius to direct a sacred rescript to him, and to restrain him from his persecution. And indeed the emperor wrote a sacred rescript to him, reproaching him as one restless and pursuing scandals, who acted and wrote without the fellowship of the priests. "After the condemnation and deposition of Apollinaris." ] He is read to have been condemned in the Council of Alexandria under Athanasius, in the Roman Council under Damasus, in the Constantinopolitan Council in the year 351.
But that he was deposed, only Theodoret, as far as I know, has said. "When some time had elapsed." ] From the death of Apollinaris, which occurred in the year 373, to the ordination of Sisinnius, which fell on a Sunday, the last of February of the year 426, there intervened fifty-three years. "It seemed good to the emperors." ] On account of discord the clergy were divided into parties, some stubbornly favoring Proclus, others Philip of Side. See the History of Nestorius prefixed to the latter part of the works of M. Mercator. "On the first." ] And yet in Socrates the tenth is given. See dissertation 2 in the latter part of the works of M.
Mercator, and marvel at the inconsistency of a certain recent dissertator, who, although in his Pelagian History he had followed Liberatus on a slight pretext, in his dissertation on the Fifth Synod returned to Socrates, under the guidance of better judgment. "For already through Antiochus." ] The certain history of events protests against this. See the preface to the second part of the works of M. Mercator. "John of Antioch also." ] Either these things are said by anticipation, and indeed quite inappropriately; or there is a fault in the history. For John, as is clear from the letter itself, wrote to Nestorius only after receiving letters from St. Celestine, and thus many months after Cyril sent the deacon Possidonius to Rome;